MLS: Atlanta United defeat shows how stupid rules are

Atlanta United were dismantled by Club America on Wednesday night. Their defeat proves how stupid the MLS rules are and the restricting impact they impose.

The age-old comparison of Major League Soccer to Liga MX in th CONCACAF Champions League came to roost once again on Wednesday night. First, it was New York City FC, dominating the great Tigres UANL for 45 minutes, only to then lose with the final kick of the game. And then came the more damning indictment of where MLS clubs stand.

Atlanta United travelled to the equally dominant Club America looking to maintain their hoodoo after last year’s Campeones Cup victory. They would attempt to do so without their star striker, almost the entirety of their starting backline, and only got two crucial offseason signings into the club this week. In reality, they never had a chance. And so it proved.

Even against a weakened America side that was dealing with their own injury issues, the Five Stripes crumbled. America exploded out of the blocks, were three goals to the good by half-time, and despite some excellent moments from Ezequiel Barco and Gonzalo ‘Pity’ Martinez, held on for the deserved spanking, putting themselves well and truly in the ascendancy.

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The disparity in quality between the two teams was stark. It points to a growing problem that MLS must address if it is to ever produce teams that are consistently capable of challenging the elite Liga MX teams in the CCL and beyond: the salary cap.

Like in other American sports, MLS has a mire of salary cap-based rules that its team must abide by. From the wages that they can pay players to the different allocation money to the discovery rights of players outside of the league to the three Designated Player slots and international roster slots, there is a convoluted mess of rules that even the best experts in the league concede that they do not fully understand.

The all-encompassing impact of these rules is the limit in the teams’ ability to recruit players. Initially, before the introduction of the DP rule, which allows a team to add a player whose budget charge is the same as a maximum TAM-player even if they are paid substantially more, there were many players that MLS teams could not sign due to wage constrictions. The league loosened the rules to allow one DP. Then two. And now three.

But while this has opened up an influx of high-level players into the league, like Barco and Martinez in Atlanta, there are still serious restrictions on the remainder of the roster, and it leads to teams being unable to properly invest throughout the squad. This, in turn, has created a gaping chasm between the various depths of MLS and Liga MX teams. At present, the top-end players are of a comparable standard. What is not is the remaining strength of the team and squad, as evidenced by a weakened Atlanta getting smashed by a weakened America.

And make no mistake, Atlanta United have the willingness and ability to spend more than they do, to round out their squad and genuinely compete with Liga MX teams. But the MLS rules prevent them from doing so. MLS is governed in a manner that suggests it is the only league of relevance in the sport, akin to NFL, NBA or MLB. But where those leagues are the pinnacle of their respective sports, football is a global game which MLS is — apparently — a part of.

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Liga MX teams are allowed to spend money that actually makes them competitive in the global market of soccer, which is the sport that MLS teams play in. But the rules of the league prevent the teams from ever fielding competitive teams. Until they are changed, until MLS and Don Garber embrace the fact that they are a part of a global game that is not so gratuitously Americanised like other American sports, Liga MX will continue to dominate.

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